• Turn Back Thursday: Kanye Wearing Great Dane

This week’s installment of Turn Back Thursday brings me back to 2006. It was a year where Street Wear culture and fashion blogs peaked and trendy fashion was defined as bright colors, bandanas around your neck, and all-over print hoodies. It was also a year where it seemed as if everyone and their mom claimed they had their own “clothing line”, when all they really had was just a bunch of screen-printed t-shirts; a simple t-shirt line, if you will. One of those t-shirt lines that emerged from 2006 and actually had a solid following on the Hypebeast forum was Great Dane. Here is a photo of Kanye West wearing the Great Dane Easter t-shirt and a multi-color Murakami x Louis Vuitton bandana. Standing alongside to his right is the owner of Great Dane.

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• Turn Back Thursday: Crooks and Castles x G.O.O.D. T-shirt

Los Angeles-based brand Crooks and Castles has exponentially grown as a clothing company and has arguably become one of the most sought-after Street Wear labels this decade. With all the success, they’ve come across many opportunities for new projects and collaborations, such as a watch with Know1edge, glasses with Mosley Tribes, and a BMX bike with SE. However, of all the Crooks and Castles collaborations, one has to admit that the t-shirt with Kanye West’s record label G.O.O.D. Music undoubtedly ranks as one of their best projects. Here’s a photo from 2007 of Kanye wearing the black Crooks and Castles x G.O.O.D. t-shirt, which was the most coveted colorway of the two released.

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• Turn Back Thursday: “Drive Slow” Music Video

If you’ve ever seen the “Drive Slow” music video from 2006, you may have been too distracted by the featured artists and all the bright Las Vegas lights to notice Kanye West’s clothing of choice for the video. These days, you’ll seldom see him wear anything that dawns a team logo (hence the fact that he bypassed jerseys for Ralph Lauren polos during the whole jersey movement in Hip Hip), but if you look closely at the video, you can see Kanye wearing a varsity jacket with the letters “SF” in a horizontal oval, on the left breast. For a clearer photo, here is Kanye wearing that same exact jacket, a  San Francsico 49ers nylon varsity jacket on the set of “Drive Slow”, with entrepreneur/tastemaker/marketer Bee Nguyen.

Source: Bee Nguyen

• Turn Back Thursday: Kanye’s Glow in the Dark Tour Outfit

With this week’s pre-sale and general sale tickets for the Fame Kills concert featuring Kanye West and Lady Gaga, I  figure it would be appropriate to turn back to 2008 during Kanye’s highly-anticipated Glow in the Dark Tour concert. Below is the concert outfit that Kanye wore to all the sold out shows in the various cities that the tour spanned. I don’t think many people understood what look he was exactly going for, but it probably didn’t matter to most because the show was just that spectacular. It was also during the Glow in the Dark Tour that Kanye wore the Nike Air Yeezy shoes in public for the 2nd time (the first time during the 2008 Grammy Awards with the black Grammy Air Yeezys). These days, they’re being referred to as the Concert Edition Air Yeezys or Fire red Air Yeezys. With Fame Kills just a little under 2 months away, expect Kanye to go “apeshit” with effects and outfits. Especially the outfits, because we all know Lady Gaga sure will.

• Turn Back Thursday: Kanye Wearing Bape

Not only has Kanye West worked alongside many great music talents, but he’s also made quite a few valuable friendships in the fashion industry. We’ve all seen the photos of Kanye with the likes of Marc Jacobs and Karl Lagerfield, who I’m sure have been a big influence in his journey to develop his own fashion label, Pastelle (Past Tell). However, one friendship that truly sticks out from the rest is his relationship with A Bathing Ape, commonly referred to as Bape, founder Nigo. Bape, and really the entire Japanese street culture, has definitely become a pioneer for many U.S. street wear trends that have emerged the past several years. Here is Kanye, with Nigo,  in the Bape Spring/Summer 2007 catalog wearing a black Bape crewneck sweater, with their infamous “Ape Shall Never Kill Ape” motto on the front.

• Turn Back Thursday: Kanye Wearing Supreme

Here’s a photo of Kanye West from 2003, during his “Backpacker”  rap days, wearing a brown Supreme fleece-hoody. As artists gain an immense amount of star power, they’re usually aligned with a stylist who introduces them to fashion brands that are “trendy” and “hip”. We’ve all seen brand loyalists jump ship because a certain celebrity was seen wearing their favorite “underground” brand, making that specific brand officially mainstream. With this 2003 photo, it proves Kanye was familiar with the New York-based skate brand prior to becoming the huge artist he is today.